McMahon crushes Shays

World Wrestling Entertainment magnate Linda McMahon will have her second chance in the political ring in November after demolishing her moderate Republican challenger, former Rep. Chris Shays, in the Connecticut Senate primary.

McMahon will take on Rep. Chris Murphy, who beat former State Secretary Susan Bysiewicz in the Democratic primary. The two will now battle it out for the Senate seat vacated by retiring Sen. Joe Lieberman. With 92.5 percent of precincts reporting, Murphy was beating Bysiewicz 67.5 percent to 32.5 percent.

This is McMahon’s second face-off in a general election. She failed to ride the Republican wave of 2010, losing to Richard Blumenthal by 12 percentage points despite spending $50 million of her own fortune.

But her primary victory Tuesday was no surprise: She had been ahead of Shays in the polls for months. The McMahon campaign engaged in an intense get-out-the-vote effort Tuesday and arranged rides for supporters to attend a victory party in Stamford, the Hartford Courant reported.

“We can start by giving all the career politicians who got us into this mess a pink slip,” McMahon said in a victory statement Tuesday night. “We can’t keep sending people like Chris Murphy, who made the mess in Washington, back to clean it up. He’s had his chance. And after six years, what do we have? More spending, more debt and higher unemployment.”

The New York Times reported that Shays said he would support McMahon in the general election and told reporters her financial resources ultimately “trumped the experience we bring to the table.”